Yaicha

Ted’s take on the world, one topic at a time.

Archive for March 1st, 2008

Costa Rica Journal: Surfing Lesson with Beto

Posted by Ted Hopton on March 1, 2008

Beto“Nah, I’m not going to do a surfing lesson. I don’t have that kind of balance.” That was the negative attitude I began with, based on my experience trying to balance on skateboards in the past. They always flew out from under me. Something about that side-to-side balancing on wheels just does not come easily to me.

Andrew, who has surfed before, insisted I would be able to do it. Tina was psyched to try it, and so was Mike. Finally, I decided to take a chance and try it, why not? So what if I fell in the water a lot. Plus, even though I wanted to go on the Medicine Hike and learn about all the plants that have medicinal uses, my feet really really really did not want to do any more hiking any time soon.

When we got to Puerto Viejo we had determined the best day and time to do the surfing lesson would be the next morning, but we had nothing set up in advance. No problem, Dawn knew just who to call, and she set up our lesson with Beto, the local surfing guru from Uruguay with dreadlocks and a completely laid-back vibe. After a brief description of what the lesson included, Mark was in, too, so there were five of us. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Costa Rica, Outdoors, Sports, Travel | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Costa Rica Journal: Prettiest Creature – Blue Morpho

Posted by Ted Hopton on March 1, 2008

Easily the prettiest wildlife I saw in Costa Rica was the Blue Morhpo butterfly. I did not get a good picture of one, but I selected the image at right because you can see how large these bright blue butterflies are.

The first one I saw startled me — I thought either my eyes were playing tricks on me, or someone else was. As we sat eating lunch in La Danta Salvaje after swimming in the 500′ waterfall’s pool, I saw what appeared to be a nearly neon bright disk flashing blue, disappearing, then flashing bright blue again, on and off in an erratic pattern in the air going across the river. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Costa Rica, Outdoors, Travel | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Costa Rica Journal: Wild Animals in the Jungle

Posted by Ted Hopton on March 1, 2008

We did not actually see many “wild” animals in La Danta Salvaje‘s rain forest preserve. I’m sure our group of hikers was far from discreet in terms of noise as far as any wildlife was concerned. It would have been pretty easy to detect us and avoid us. But we did have some encounters with wildlife.

Tapirs

We found tapir tracks, including some very large ones. The trails we hiked on were originally tapir trails, so we were really the trespassers on their pathways. Seeing a tapir is rare, however, and we did not have the privilege.

Jaguar

We did see a jaguar track, however, which was really cool. They are quite rare, so to find that one was in the immediate area was exciting. Although we never saw the cat, we may have had an encounter with it, just the same.

On our third day in La Danta Salvaje, Mike and I found ourselves trailing the rest of our group, which was being led by Bernardo that day (Bernardo and Lydia live just down the mountain from La Danta Salvaje, and they consist of the staff at the lodge when groups stay there). We were on the monkey trail in search of monkeys, and then headed down to a swimming hole at the river. As we walked through the dense forest, I heard a strange sound. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Costa Rica, Outdoors, Travel | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.